Creed: Rise to Glory review – A VR boxing simulator without the pain

Wii Sports Boxing was a game that made millions of gamers feel like boxers, thanks to the Wiimote controllers mimicking punches. But with VR technology and motion controllers, it’s time to take the virtual boxing world to the next level. Developed by Survios, Creed: Rise to Glory puts you in the gloves of Adonis Creed, the son of Apollo Creed in the Rocky films. Thanks to the PSVR, Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, you’ll actually feel like a boxer, minus the concussions and pain.

Creed: Rise to Glory offers many modes including story mode, exhibition matches, training mode, and PvP. The first thing you want to do is play through the campaign mode. It’ll help you with training and fighting AI opponents. You play as Adonis Creed, and you are proving your worth as a fighter by training hard and taking down boxers from around the world. During training, you’ll be punching bags, running on treadmills, and hitting dummies. The game doesn’t really show you the proper boxing form, so you’ll have to experiment. The game does a good job of lining your real-life upper body with your virtual upper body. The addition of VR truly helps with immersion. The game offers different difficulty levels, but if you have boxed or done MMA before, I suggest selecting hard difficulty. I tried the campaign on normal, and I was able to defeat all the opponents without losing. The campaign is very short and lasted about an hour, and once finished, there really isn’t an incentive to try again other than to redo it on a harder difficulty.

After you’re done with the story, you can try out Freeplay. In here, you’ll be able to do exhibition matches, exercise, do training montages, and change the gym location. Choosing Fights will start the exhibition match where you can select your fighter and who your AI opponent is going to be. Yes, Rocky Balboa is a playable character in here. Exercises will allow you to train with a combo dummy, reaction bag, flurry bag, focus dummy, directional double bag, dodge double bag, treadmill, and pad training with a trainer. Since this game does feature Rocky, you’ll get to tenderize raw meat with your fists in the meat locker.

Once you’ve had enough training, PvP is where it’s at. It took me a bit to find a match (probably since it’s launch day), but once you’ve found an opponent, it becomes really fun. A tip is to block your opponent’s attack and wait for an opening. Once they reveal themselves, counter with a combo. My preferred combo is the jab-cross. However, you can mix up other combos to confuse the player. The most entertaining part of PvP is the unpredictably of the players. For example, I had one player who looked very confused about the controls, and they were moving all over the place except for the center. And yes, you’ll encounter some immature players, so if you are easily offended about virtual touching in your virtual private region, I suggest staying out of PvP mode.

Final Reaction

The main campaign is really short, but there is a lot of replay value with the other modes including PvP. Survios has done a great job with creating a VR boxing simulator. My arms were sore the next day after doing a lot of training and boxing a lot of enemies. I do suggest bringing a towel to wipe the sweat away, since you’ll be burning some calories.